CIC to Announce Science Award Competition
With funding from the Russell Pearce and Elizabeth Crimian Heuer Foundation, CIC will soon announce a competition that will award two prizes of $10,000 each to colleges or universities for recent outstanding achievements in undergraduate science education.
    Science education at liberal arts colleges is already widely acknowledged in reports by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a distinctive strength of those institutions. Data show that a higher percentage of science majors and science graduates come from small liberal arts colleges compared with other kinds of higher education institutions; a higher percentage of females and minority students major in science at liberal arts colleges compared with large research universities; a disproportionate number of NSF fellowship awardees are graduates of small liberal arts colleges; and the "most cited" authors of scientific journal publications are graduates of such institutions.
    Despite these successes, small liberal arts colleges continue to be under considerable stress in those areas that support and contribute directly to the training of science teachers—faculty who are up-to-date in their training, laboratories that give students useful experiences, and student research opportunities in collaboration with faculty mentors.
    Prize money from the CIC competition can be used by a department for a wide variety of purposes, including as stipends for students who are conducting research projects with faculty mentors, and efforts by departments to improve K-12 science education.

CIC Colleges to Participate
in Frye Leadership Institute
Five CIC institutions have been accepted as participants in the prestigious 2001 Frye Leadership Institute. Hans Houshower, director of technology at Bluffton College (OH); Cynthia Krey, assistant director of instructional technology at The College of St. Catherine (MN); Lynne Hamre, director of information technologies at The College of St. Scholastica (MN); Diane Graves, dean of the library and information services, Wyndham Robertson Library of Hollins University (VA); and Madeline A. Carnevale, director of desktop technologies for library, information, and technology services of Mount Holyoke College (MA) will join individuals from 50 other colleges and universities for the intensive, two-week residential program held June 3-15 at Emory University.
    In addition, during the Institute Hartwick College President Richard Detweiler (who has been involved in the institute's planning process), Georgetown College (KY) President William H. Crouch, and CIC President Richard Ekman, will give presentations about leadership challenges stemming from the changing context and complexity of higher education.
    "CIC encouraged member presidents to nominate participants," said CIC President Richard Ekman. "The number of successful nominations suggests how competitive CIC schools can be in nationally competitive programs that are open to all types of institutions. About one-fourth of our nominations were selected," he said.   
    The Frye Leadership Institute focuses on challenges in higher education, leadership, and the qualities needed to confront strategic change in higher education. It is designed to instill in campus leaders new competencies and perspectives on technology, economics, public policy, and constituent-relations. The program will pay special attention to the implications of the growing power of information technology to transform research, teaching, and scholarly communication.
    Following the two-week session, each participant will conduct a year-long practicum to explore, within his or her own institutional environment, the issues and questions raised during the institute. The results of the practicum will be shared by participants in a short seminar the following year.
    The institute is sponsored by the Council on Library and Information Resources (www.clir.org), EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu), and Emory University (www.emory.edu) and is supported by a grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.

CIC Announces New Program to Support Math and Science Teaching Scholars
CIC recently announced an initiative to assist colleges and universities to strengthen mathematics, science, and technology education in the nation's K-12 classrooms. The Teaching Scholar Partnerships (TSP) Program is a competitive grants program funded by the National Science Foundation that will make awards of up to $30,000 over two years to ten CIC institutions.
    These grants will enable institutions, in partnership with elementary and secondary schools, to support undergraduate students whose major area of concentration is in mathematics, science, or technology, as they assist in K-12 classrooms. These students, with the guidance of both K-12 teachers and college faculty members, will be known as Teaching Scholars and will receive annual stipends.
    The program is guided by three broad goals:

• To enrich and strengthen the learning experience of K-12 students in mathematics and science;
• To encourage undergraduate students in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology to consider K-12 mathematics and science teaching as a career option; and
• To generate national attention to the critical contribution that collaborative K-16 partnerships make to ensure the vitality of local schools.

    Applications for this program are due on April 12, 2001. All CIC member institutions are eligible to apply. The project period will extend for two years, from July 1, 2001 until June 30, 2003.
    For additional information, contact Project Director Bill Moncrief at moncrief @cic.nche.edu or (202) 466-7230, or visit CIC's website, www.cic.edu/projects.

CIC Receives Grant for Library Collaboration
Another CIC project will create opportunities for small and medium-sized liberal arts colleges to address the rapid changes occurring in the world of academic libraries.
    The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation awarded a planning grant to CIC to establish sustained collaborative relationships among the project's 15 participating small and medium-sized liberal arts colleges and one or more university research libraries. The project, Technological Change and the Transformation of the Liberal Arts College Library, will also seek to establish more effective cooperation within a campus and among presidents, provosts, IT directors, and library directors.
    Project participants will focus on such issues as costs (both for acquisitions and for other library functions), quality control, how to best provide information needed by the campus community, administrative infrastructure problems, and concerns about the ability of library directors (and other librarians) at these institutions to stay adequately informed about technological changes.

Staff Notes
CIC President Richard Ekman presented greetings from the scholarly community at the fall inauguration of Le Moyne College's (NY) new president, Charles J. Bierne, S.J., and visited several campuses, including Southwestern University (TX) and Georgetown College (KY). He also has addressed a number of groups, including the FIHE Board of Directors in November, and in January the Project Pericles Advisory Board meeting, NAICU annual business meeting, and Presbyterian Colleges Association meeting.... CIC Development VP Candace Groudine just finished a chapter on what motivates college and university presidents to raise money for their institution's libraries for a book, "Case Studies on Library Fundraising," published by the Association of Research Libraries and scheduled for publication next year.... Annual Programs VP Mary Ann Rehnke recently began serving as CIC's representative for Executives in Church-Related Higher Education and attended the organization's bi-annual meeting on March 28th. She also met in February with members of the Faculty Work Collaboration to discuss Pew-funded projects on faculty..... CAPHE Executive Director Michelle Gilliard traveled to St. Louis on March 25-26 to chair a session at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities, "Partnerships: Building on the Strengths of the Urban Setting." The session highlighted the work of CIC's Implementing Urban Missions grant program. On March 28, she presented the findings from CAPHE's analysis of the FIHE/UPS Venture Fund Program at the FIHE Annual Meeting in Tampa.
    CIC continues to see changes in the staff. Erika Henderson, projects manager for CAPHE and a doctoral student in higher education administration at George Washington University, was recently appointed membership manager. She is taking over for Kelly Sennewald, who left CIC to spend more time with her young family. Stephen Gibson replaces Erika as the new projects manager; he comes to us from Swobo Clothing in San Francisco, California, where he served as editor and office assistant. He is a poet and earned a MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, Seattle.

CIC Conference Assistant Alcenia McIntosh-Peters, as the mother of elementary school students at a D.C. public School recognized by President George W. Bush for its approach to standardized testing, was honored to be selected by First-Lady Laura Bush to sit as a guest in her box in the House of Representatives visitor's gallery during the president's budget address to congress in February. Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams (right) was also a guest.

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Last updated: May 30, 2001
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